My dogs that love gravy! These laws are being driven by religion, more truthfully people that hid their true religious intent to get elected to then try to force their religious views on everyone else. To force everyone to live by their churches doctrines and their religious driven idea of what is moral or not. Do you understand this is a bunch of hyper religious people wagging their fingers at the people they dislike and telling them god sees what they are doing? This is our time of the temperance movement or the prohibition of alcohol that went so badly wrong. It is a small group of people who have extreme views of morality based on their own religious views who insist on forcing everyone else to live according to their views. It is the morality police and the vice patrols of the Islamic theocracies that the same people doing this in the US claim to hate. It is scary to me the regressive world they want to force the country into. Hugs. Scottie
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee’s version of the age verification bills being sponsored around the country by anti-porn religious conservative activists continues making its progress through the state legislature toward likely approval.
On Tuesday, the state’s Senate Finance Committee advanced SB 1792 — titled by its chief sponsor, Republican Senator Becky Duncan Massey, as the “Protect Tennessee Minors Act” — out of committee.
SB 1792 “would make porn websites criminally liable if they don’t verify the ages of users of their sites through photo matching,” local CBS affiliate WREG reported.
Massey compared the proposed new requirement to “age verification when folks go on an alcohol-related site,” and said her bill is necessary because, she believes, pornography “can cause damage” and “mental health issues.”
FSC Director of Public Affairs Mike Stabile, however, told XBIZ that Massey’s bill effectively criminalizes the distribution of adult content online, which he cited as a frequently stated goal of many conservatives.
Stabile also called SB 1792 “an escalation of what we’ve seen in other states” and deemed it “a grave threat” to First Amendment protections.
“First it was private lawsuits, then fines from attorneys general — Tennessee evidently wants to become the first state to begin arresting pornographers,” Stabile said, adding that the Tennessee bill’s chilling effect on legal speech will be substantial.
“The legislature’s own fiscal review committee says that it assumes ‘a majority of entities’ will simply stop publishing content in the state, but that, if not, ‘the increase in such convictions could be significant,’” he explained.
Stabile also pointed out that for many legislators, age verification is “just an excuse to increase liabilities for people that create, and platforms that host, material dealing in sex or sexuality. It’s no surprise that Tennessee has also recently expanded the definition of ‘material harmful to minors’ to include drag and other non-explicit LGBTQ+ content offline, and the bill itself criminalizes as little as the description of a nipple.”
Aylo: Recent Slew of AV Laws Are ‘Ineffective, Dangerous’
SB 1792 would also require websites to keep “anonymized age-verification data” for extended periods of time.
Massey told WREG, “They keep the data but not personally identifying data. They have to keep the data to prove that they did verify for seven years, but it can’t have their name, address. It can’t have any personal identifying markers.”
Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Utah and Virginia have passed similar age verification bills, all introduced by Republicans, while 19 other states have introduced similar legislation. Florida recently passed its version of the law, written by a legislator who is also a pastor, as part of a more comprehensive social media bill.
Aylo issued a statement about the Tennessee bill and the other laws, stating, “The way many jurisdictions worldwide have chosen to implement age verification is ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous. Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy. Moreover, as experience has demonstrated, unless properly enforced, users will simply access non-compliant sites or find other methods of evading these laws.”
Main Image: Anti-Porn crusader Tennessee Sen. Becky Duncan Massey (R)
Marchers carry a rainbow flag to the Alabama Capital during the 2019 Pride March and RallyPhoto: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser/ via IMAGN
Alabama’s legislature is advancing two censorious anti-LGBTQ bills: H.B. 130 would ban LGBTQ+ flags in classrooms and expand the state’s “Don’t say gay” law to include grades 6-8; H.B. 385 would jail librarians for giving “sexual or gender-oriented material” to minors without parental consent. Both bills were approved in the Alabama House of Representatives this week and now head to the state’s Republican-led upper legislative chamber.
Alabama’s current “Don’t Say Gay” law says that K-5 classrooms “shall not engage in classroom discussion or provide classroom instruction regarding sexual orientation or gender identity in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” H.B. 130 would also remove the section “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” banning LGBTQ+ discussions completely.
The sweeping education bill also includes a trans bathroom ban.
The H.B. 130 expansion, which passed the state House on Tuesday, would expand the law to include grades 6-8 and also prohibit “flags symbolizing sexual orientations or gender identities” in all grade school levels.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Mack Butler (R), said the bill is necessary to “purify the schools” of “some indoctrination going on,” ABC News reported.
“[LGBTQ+ discussions and flags are] a component of Marxism where we’re – you know – destroying the family and teaching some of these things. Let it happen somewhere else other than our schools.” Butler said.
The ACLU of Alabama has spoken against the law, saying that it would silence “inclusive” and “essential” discussions among students and teachers in classrooms while violating their First Amendment rights to free speech.
On Thursday, the Alabama House also passed H.B. 385, a bill would expand the state’s definition of “sexual conduct” to include conduct that “knowingly exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd and lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities in K-12 public schools, public libraries, and other public places where minors are expected and are known to be present without parental consent.”
The law would place libraries in the same category as “adult-only” stores, movies, and entertainment” in order to criminalize librarians who provide “sexual or gender-oriented material” to minors without parental consent.
The bill would force school and public librarians to remove any books that other people find “obscene” or “harmful” to minors — though the law doesn’t specify who would determine what’s “obscene” or “harmful.” After filing a written objection to the library director or principal, librarians would then have seven days to remove the book from shelves.
Librarians who fail to do so could initially face a misdemeanor criminal charge and a fine of up to $10,000 and a county jail or hard labor sentence of up to one year. If a librarian is convicted of a second or subsequent violation, they could face a class C felony charge punishable by up to 10 years in prison, The Alabama Reflector reported.
State Rep. Neil Rafferty (D) said the law is so broadly written that it could allow a single complaint to result in a warrant being issued for someone who wears an objectionable Halloween costume or sundress.
“I do still have some serious problems with this because I feel like this is a violation of First Amendment, I feel like is easily going to be abused, and we will be dealing with unintended consequences of it,” Rafferty said.
“This bill is government overreach, robs parents of their rights, and would have a chilling effect on free speech by potentially incarcerating librarians because particular books are available, including even the Bible,” wrote Craig Scott, president of the Alabama Library Association.
Both bills are among several copycat laws across the country that seek to block minors from accessing LGBTQ+ content under the belief that such content “sexualizes” and “indoctrinates” children. Sponsors of these bills never note that numerous types of classroom and library materials have depicted heterosexual romance and issues without much parental or political objection.
Think about the US republicans in congress and the fundamentalist Christians preaching the great values of Russia under Putin’s dictatorship and this is why. These people want what Russia did, a complete ban and outlawing anything / all things LGBTQ+ from society. It is the same thing Islamic theocracies do. The culture warriors in the US, the fundamentalist and the Russian loving republicans want the ability to do this so very much. That is why they want tRump to be a dictator, so they can also do what Russia does, enforce a strict white male society free of any dissent and pushing a straight cis society on the public while the state fully endorses the fundamentalist Christian church. We really need to understand and fear what these people truly want. Hugs. Scottie
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Three novels – including James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” – have already been banned by a special council.
Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Chekov beware: Putin is coming for the books.
The latest front in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on LGBTQ+ people is purging books with LGBTQ+ content from Russia’s bookshelves and the internet.
A pony in the show has a rainbow mane, and Russian television speculates that that was enough to inspire the raid.
A new council set up by the Russian Book Union, a nominally independent body representing publishing professionals, has been tasked with conforming the publishing industry to Russia’s trifecta of anti-gay laws and rulings, according to France 24.
The council’s first act was to ban the sale of novels A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and Heritage by Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin.
The council decided those works contravened article 6.21 of Russia’s code of administrative offenses, which prohibits “propaganda” advocating “non-traditional sexual relationships.”
Human Rights Watch says the law has been widely used to ban “sharing positive and even neutral information” about LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations.
While the Kremlin did not directly establish the new council, it is stocked with its representatives, including members of the Russian military and Orthodox Church who are reliably subservient to Putin and his authoritarian government.
Putin’s anti-LGBTQ+ campaign began in earnest in 2013 with the passage of the original law banning “gay propaganda” allegedly aimed at children. It was expanded in 2022 to ban any depiction of same-sex relationships in popular media, including advertisements, films, and video games. Last year, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled the so-called “International LGBT movement” is a terrorist organization.
While books were also covered under the propaganda law’s expansion in 2022, the esteem Russians hold for literature and the fraught history of censorship under Soviet rule meant officials were wary of targeting books in the same way as more popular forms of information and entertainment like the internet and television.
The new council’s focus on books is “part of a broader information-warfare crackdown related to the anti-gay-propaganda law”, said Jeff Hawn, a Russia specialist at the London School of Economics.
In Russia, “Literature has always enjoyed a special status because censorship of books was a very important part of the Soviet regime,” Hawn said. “And freedom for writers after the fall of the Soviet Union was enshrined.”
Mass media, however, has been a priority up until this point, according to Stephen Hutchings, a specialist in Russian and Soviet cultural history at the University of Manchester.
“What people see in the news [and the] press is much more significant, in that regard, than what is portrayed in fictional writing,” said Hutchings. “So it’s more pressing to control these platforms.”
But the publishing world has been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In early 2022, an independent Russian journalist published a list on Telegram of 250 books at risk of being withdrawn from sale with adoption of the expanded propaganda law. Authorities at the time described it as alarmist.
All three recently banned novels were on the list.
The American Library Association (ALA) has released its top 10 most challenged books of 2023, and seven of them were challenged for containing LGBTQ+ content.
“In looking at the title of the most challenged books from last year, it’s obvious that the pressure groups are targeting books about LGBTQ+ people and people of color,” said ALA President Emily Drabinski in a press release.
The vocal protests of the ALA emphasize the ways in which libraries and their workers have striven to address the needs of their readers with progressive and crucial services.
“At ALA, we are fighting for the freedom to choose what you want to read. Shining a light on the harmful workings of these pressure groups is one of the actions we must take to protect our right to read,” Drabinski said.
The number of titles at risk for censorship increased by 65% in 2023 compared to the year before, the highest ever recorded by ALA.
The 10 most challenged books of 2023 are as follows:
Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe
Reasons: LGBTQ+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Reasons: LGBTQ+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Reasons: LGBTQ+ content, sex education, claimed to be sexually explicit
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQ+ content, rape, drugs, profanity
Flamer by Mike Curato
Reasons: LGBTQ+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Rape, incest, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI content
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs, rape, LGBTQ+ content
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity
Let’s Talk About It by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, sex education, LGBTQ+ content
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicitly, rape
“These are books that contain the ideas, the opinions, and the voices that censors want to silence — stories by and about LGBTQ+ persons and people of color,” said Deborah Caldwell, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
“Each challenge, each demand to censor these books is an attack on our freedom to read, our right to live the life we choose, and an attack on libraries as community institutions that reflect the rich diversity of our nation. When we tolerate censorship, we risk losing all of this. During National Library Week, we should all take action to protect and preserve libraries and our rights.”
According to the ALA, most of the challenges prior to 2021 sought to remove access to a single title, whereas more recent challenges – fueled by the so-called parents’ rights movement and anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups like Moms for Liberty – target multiple titles 90% of the time.
“Overwhelmingly, we’re seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media,” said Caldwell-Stone.
“Their aim is to suppress the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nation’s conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color. Each attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every person’s constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore. The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to self-appointed book police.”
Seriously people are proud of acting this way? Really? If a child acted like this the parents would discipline or correct them, yet adults think college kids and tRump supporters think the thuggish racist behavior is great. tRump loves it. It is his style. Berate, ridicule, insult, demean others is what tRump thinks is intellectual reasoning and discussion. What has this country devolved into? I thought we grew out of this childish shit a long time ago. Hugs. Scottie
There were hundreds of counter-protesters, in contrast to the few dozen pro-Palestine protesters. The scene evoked memories of the resistance to the civil rights struggle in the US south six decades earlier.
The counter-protesters included individuals waving American flags and Trump flags. At one point, they sang the American national anthem, drowning out the pro-Palestine group’s chants.
There were no arrests, but the actions of the counter-protesters – who shouted “Fuck Joe Biden”, “Who’s your daddy?”, “USA”, “Hit the showers”, “Your nose is huge”, and included a white man making monkey noises at a Black woman – have been widely condemned on social media.
Trump released an ad featuring the University of Mississippi frat group who made monkey gestures and monkey noises at a Black woman student who was protesting for Palestine. pic.twitter.com/8xQc7zEdky
I would like to think that his behavior is just a bit of bad judgment he will grow out of, but I seriously doubt it. Not in Mississippi. He has so very, very few good examples to look to.
These white boy frats have been raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars via GiveSendGo over the past few days. There are all kinds of right-wing companies that want employees like this.
Remember when we thought we had finally started to turn the page with the election of Barack Obama?
Turns out it only emboldened the worst fucking people in this country, who will do absolutely anything to ensure they stay in power as their majority dwindles.
This is direct backlash against having a Black man in the White House. Magats are butthurt about it, and they need to reassert their claim on the government
This interview points out some of the flaws in the Cass Report, and how Cass herself was a known anti-trans person who had worked with DeathSantis and his administration. Talk about asking the fox about the hen house security. The people who wanted a badly done report on trans care / trans kids choose a known anti-trans person to do it. Erin Reed is a trans person who is very well versed in trans issues. The video is not long, about 14.19 minutes long but very informative if you know someone who is an anti-trans hater who often says well look at the UK and those places they are stopping care, or someone who likes to refer to the Cass report. Hugs. Scottie
Journalist Erin Reed, author of the Erin In The Morning newsletter on SubStack, discusses the recent gender identity review by the National Health Services (NHS) in the United Kingdom.
Erin Reed and Emma then jump right into the background for the UK’s recent Cass Report on transgender care, stepping back to briefly cover the rise of transphobic activism in the UK at the end of the 2010s, and the major policy impacts it had despite fringe following, including the NHS-sponsored ‘independent’ and ‘unbiased’ review by Hillary Cass. After giving some background on the evidently not-so-unbiased Cass herself, Reed parses through the clear failure of the report itself to live up to these supposed standards, actively excluding both trans voices and experts on trans care from the report, relying on outdated and fraudulent statistics (compiled by notorious homophobes nonetheless), and repeatedly requiring absurdly high standards for trans care – standards not met by the vast majority of both adult and pediatric care – while rarely substantiating any of the claims about the supposed dangers.
Photo: Shutterstock
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